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“This is my favorite tea alongside some FengHuang DanCongs and I intend to always have it on hand. My little round ZhuNi pot is used for only TGYs that are really similar in both roast and oxidation...”
Read full tasting note

“Monkey-Picked Tie Guan Yin has been Imperial Tea Court’s signature tea ever since we opened our doors 16 years ago. The tea that grew wild in the Wuyi Mountains was once so rare and difficult...”
Read full tasting note

From Imperial Tea Court

Monkey-Picked Tie Guan Yin has been Imperial Tea Court’s signature tea ever since we opened our doors 16 years ago. The tea that grew wild in the Wuyi Mountains was once so rare and difficult to harvest that it was said only monkeys could gather leaves from such inaccessible mountainsides. Therefore, South China tea merchants traditionally called their best tea “monkey-picked” to signify its rarity. A proprietor’s monkey-picked tea is like his calling card, representing his tea philosophy. No traditional tea merchant calls a tea monkey-picked lightly! Our Monkey-Picked Tie Guan Yin is nothing less than exceptional. Processed with traditional techniques, this tie guan yin was oxidized “three hong (red) to seven lu (green),” in other words, until 30% of the leaf is reddish brown and 70% remains green. We perform the final firing here in the US to ensure maximum aromatics and flavor. Fans of this great tea will be delighted with this year’s improved version, which features larger leaves packed with flavor, rich viscosity, a great balance of florals and firing, glossy bao guang (“treasured luster” – a sign of high leaf quality) and a rare and highly desireable reddish-orange liquor

2 Tasting Notes

This is my favorite tea alongside some FengHuang DanCongs and I intend to always have it on hand. My little round ZhuNi pot is used for only TGYs that are really similar in both roast and oxidation to this one. I actually have a travel tin about the size and shape of a hip flask I keep in my coat with this in it.
This time around I used 5g with a descending curve on water volume (leaves steadily displace more and more through progressive infusions) starting at 125ml and down to 100ml by the 10th infusion. I kept the steep time at 30 seconds for the first 6 infusions with 83 degree C water and bumping up to 45 seconds for 7th-10th infusions. Gave a single rinse with about 15 second contact time, though first retained brew might as well have been another rinse.

Leaves are shiny dark green and mossy brown with pale yellow-green stems tinges with gold and thin reddish stripes on stems, veins, and leaf margins. Fragrance is toasty hay with a “ripe” non-fruit fruity quality like smelling cooking zucchini. When placed in my heated teapot this does take on the light fruit smell of an uncut plum or nectarine. Wet aroma always reminds me of the smell of the hills in my hometown come October… Warm air mixing with a faint hint of coming crispness rolling off sunbaked, clay-heavy hillsides covered in a thick layer of dry annual grasses plus the smell of drying vineyards, just-ready to harvest cornrows, rushes and faint note from the first pumpkins being broken from their vines. Liquor is pale yellow and transparent. Aroma coming off the tea is more muted and mellow green toastiness. Orchid, lilac, dried lily/orchid leaves and palm fronds, sun-heated schist, a bit of wet moss and clay, and blackberry brambles. There is an always-surprising accuracy to the similarity of the liquor aroma and the smell of blooming Juncus and Carex wetland grasses in a drying spring-fed shallow freshwater marsh. It’s this unique floral-vegetal-toasty-pollen-milky-cottony-heady-lighty buttered and faint grassy menthol characteristic that really hits you hiking into upland marsh in Mediterranean climates. Yes, I once brought everything needed to brew this tea out to where I was doing a vegetative survey just to make sure I wasn’t off my rocker about this all-too-precise similarity.

Mild flavor and mellow, balanced body that builds a little in 3rd-5th infusions. Most of what this tea is about is in the aroma, but the light flavor balances it out. Taste is crisp with a slight acidity like the light sour taste you get from milk or cream. Yellow bell pepper sweetness. Not much of a savory quality, but just enough to be noticed (you get much more when brewing longer). Warm sourdough bread and a bit of cheese in aftertaste. Very smooth and soothing. Warms the belly. Palm/coconut husk in the afteraroma.
Again – not very fruity at all, but if you search for it, you’ll inevitably combine the floral aromatics with the crisp flavor to make something plum skin or peach-like. Really, this is more about creaminess and dried grasses with monocot flowers.

Very pleasant, easy drinking tea. Flavor shifts a bit between floral, vegetal, buttery, mineral, and woody depending on how it’s brewed so it keeps interesting and makes it fun to screw with brewing parameters. I love this tea. Not the most Jaw-dropping tea in the world, but really tasty. One of those teas that makes it really pleasant to stick your nose in the cup after finishing and will leave you absentmindedly reaching for your cup over and over again to find it empty. “Oh, there isn’t any more :(” pops into my head a bunch. Guess that’s why I motor through it so fast.

Preparation

Monkey-Picked Tie Guan Yin has been Imperial Tea Court’s signature tea ever since we opened our doors 16 years ago. The tea that grew wild in the Wuyi Mountains was once so rare and difficult to harvest that it was said only monkeys could gather leaves from such inaccessible mountainsides. Therefore, South China tea merchants traditionally called their best tea “monkey-picked” to signify its rarity. A proprietor’s monkey-picked tea is like his calling card, representing his tea philosophy. No traditional tea merchant calls a tea monkey-picked lightly! Our Monkey-Picked Tie Guan Yin is nothing less than exceptional. Processed with traditional techniques, this tie guan yin was oxidized “three hong (red) to seven lu (green),” in other words, until 30% of the leaf is reddish brown and 70% remains green. We perform the final firing here in the US to ensure maximum aromatics and flavor. Fans of this great tea will be delighted with this year’s improved version, which features larger leaves packed with flavor, rich viscosity, a great balance of florals and firing, glossy bao guang (“treasured luster” – a sign of high leaf quality) and a rare and highly desireable reddish-orange liquor